Lain Shakespeare - Being an empathetic company
”Define your core values. Your product is not your values”
Lain Shakespeare like to compare empathetic companies to the best kind of neighbors. They have a good grasp on others perspective, are service orientated and partner with others to make a change for the better. With his role as Corporate Citizen Manager at MailChimp, Lain steer the company in the direction of acting as a good neighbor.
Lain stresses the importance of defining your values and have clear examples of what your core values are. The product or service of the company isn’t necessarily its core value. Lain take Mailchimp as an example, where the words “email” and “marketing” don’t constitute their core values. Instead when they express their values for the community they speak about humility, creativity and independence. According to Lain most companies lead with what they know instead of what they are. The former tends to take on a condescending perspective which from an empathetic perspective is not optimal. Out of his own experiences, Lain talks about how companies can make a holistic beneficial impact in the community.
